US Buddhist Sharon S. on The Moth (audio)

Who's the beautiful hippie on the left next to Dipa, Dipa's mom (Dipa Ma), and Jesus' brother?

We wondered about her weight until we met her

Sharon Salzberg is a pioneer in the field of Buddhist meditation, a world-renowned JuBu teacher and New York Times bestselling author.

She has played a crucial role [along with her colleagues and fellow travelers Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein] in bringing meditation and mindfulness to the West and into mainstream culture since 1974, when she first began teaching.

• AUDIO: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (The Moth)
• Voices of Insight Meditation (anthology edited by Salzberg)

Back in old Calcutta with Saint Dipa Ma

Salzberg is the co-founder of the first Western meditation center in the US: The Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts.

She has authored ten books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, her initial work, Lovingkindness, and her 2017 release, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection.

She's a great teacher full of quotes.

Acclaimed for her down-to-earth teaching style, Salzberg offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist Teachings (Dharma), making them instantly accessible.

She is a regular columnist for ON BEING, a contributor to the Huffington Post, and the host of her own podcast, THE METTA HOUR, with over 70 episodes. Learn more about all of these at sharonsalzberg.com.

• AUDIO: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (The Moth)

What about her weight?

In the world, is there Real Happiness to be found?

If you're like us, you may wonder about an attained person being obese. (How dare us acknowledge that as if it matters!)

We wondered about Sharon Salzberg's weight, which was an issue for us if not for her or anyone else. We went to meet her in person in Hollywood at the new (now defunct) InsightLA East on Melrose years ago. All we wanted to do was get an answer to a vexing question about the behavior of stream enterers and noble ones: Shouldn't their morality (sila) and conduct (karma) be perfect, unblemished, now spotless no matter how mottled it was beforehand?

Dr. Gabor Mate and Sharon Salzberg at the Living An Authentic Life Summit.

The body today is a reflection of the past.

She laughed, we laughed, what a silly question. (We have asked others, being so privileged in this life to having met about 21 noble ones and maybe even seven arhats).

There is a widespread belief, particularly in Theravada Buddhist countries, that sotapannas ("stream enterers," those persons who have entered the first stage of Buddhist enlightenment, which come in various grades according to The Path to Freedom).

• 

  The Stress-Disease Connection

  When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Dr. Gabor Maté (drgabormate.com) explains. It promotes healing, providing transformative insights into how disease can be the body’s way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. Can we literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and disease? Is there such a thing as a “cancer personality”? Drawing on scientific research and the author’s decades of experience as a practicing physician... If we ignore the body and keep going, eventually the body will say NO.

It is simply not true. We have seen this with our own eyes. The evidence that they are capable of being immoral (doing wrong things) is right in the Ratana Sutta ("Jewel Sutra," "Treasure Discourse"), one of the most widely chanted sutras and parittas in all of Theravada.

Sharon is our kalyana-mitta, noble friend.

But try to tell that to anyone, and all they will say is that that person must just not be one. The person CAN be one and slip up or choose to do wrong or do wrong by habit or do wrong unawares, but they cannot conceal the wrongdoing. (Even this is shaky because they can change the subject, not respond, play dumb, choose not to talk about it, so long as they've mumbled a confession or voiced one to someone else, when the text reads as if they are perfectly transparent, full of admission, and apologetic. This has not been our experience).

Who writes about faith but those who need it most?

Even, and this is shocking, an arhat (arahant, a fully enlightened person) is capable of breaking monastic rules. (This is important because, according to the tradition, one would pass away after attaining final liberation unless one could become a monastic and live in a sangha of moral people, a view widely accepted except for Dr. Daniel Ingram, a self-proclaimed arhat who is not a monk but is the author of the great work, Hardcore Dharma).

Surely, if such beings were perfect, the ones they are liable to break would not be specified in the Vinaya texts. What is true is that different types of enlightened beings, aryans, are not capable of breaking certain rules of the moral code, but to think that one is morally perfect at stream entry is a MYTH. It does not accord to reality.

Another belief is that an enlightened person cannot be mentally imbalanced, and this is likely true. But it's only true of arhats. If a person with a learning disability or worse were to awaken, that would all clear up. The evidence for this is the story of a simpleton monk, within whom the Buddha saw potential. So he gave him the simplest meditation of all -- to simply rub a clean white cloth with his clean hand.

In doing so, it is said, the cloth became discolored, and the monk realized impermanence (anicca) as his hand was wearing away, sweating, or became soiled, and its cells were rubbing off, staining the white cloth. As soon as he fully awakened, his previous mental incapacity was instantly cured. (To read the story, one gets the sense that retardation or other disability are like a spell, like when a person suffering from laryngitis and does not have a voice is asked something and answers perfectly. Someone notices and asks, "So you can talk now?" And the laryngitis is instantly back. This may be true with all kinds of illnesses, like they are illusions we bought into or powered by karma).

What's the point?

Are we "fat shaming"? What's our point? Maybe there's a glandular issue.

We may be immature and jerks, but we notice weight and other characteristics -- unlike our readers, who are all openminded, tolerant, accepting, celebratory, and pro-everything.

Others, nonreaders, might wonder how a person so advanced in meditation, having attained the noble path, could suffer an illness that we all regard as having to do with self-control and morality. Morality?  Yes. Kamesu-micchacara (usually translated as "sexual misconduct") actually means "SENSUAL misconduct," which includes gluttony, excess consumption, hedonism of the tongue's taste buds.

Take the annual Meditation Challenge

We know, thanks to Dr. Gabor Mate, that childhood trauma -- which Salzberg suffered, which we suffered, which what American hasn't suffered, and we're said to be the lucky ones living on top of the world (when we know we have it pretty bad emotionally and psychologically inside the Empire) -- is at the root of addictions (see In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts) and illnesses (When the Body Says No).

So wouldn't a person at realization suddenly be healthy in mind and body? No, not necessarily. It might be so for arhats, but we wouldn't think so.

"We can always begin again" - Sharon Salzberg

Now, there's no problem with it if one knows that   At least we used to. We judge people who are heavy. We are heavy.

A beautiful story Sharon told us as we sat with her trying to whisper our questions but then attracted a group of people afraid to ask their own tough questions was about how she came to write Lovingkindness. We might have pointed out how "real" and "honest" she was when she spoke, not at all the "Metta Booster" we thought she would be. She smiled broadly because she had heard this before and said something like, "Do you think people who write books about metta do it because they have so much metta?"

We all laughed again. We did think that before we thought about it. What could be further from the truth? We write books about what we need to learn most. That's what we teach. This website should be called "Dummy Quarterly," because, you see, we're dumb.

The way of wisdom is approaching the wise.

We're trying to be transcendentally wise and liberated. We are not saying we're there only that we're going. Going where? Wisdomville, beyond the Beyond. But we won't be getting there without asking a lot of dumb questions first. The only "dumb" question is the one that doesn't get asked (or the one so weighed down with assumptions that it boggles the mind).

If we've done wrong or offended readers in talking about this, we can always begin again. It's back to the mat and noble silence. We're the fortunate ones because we met and fell in love with Sharon Salzberg, who may not have been born a loving and faith-filled person but sure is one now. 😍😇😂

• Fall in love with her, too: The Best of Sharon Salzberg: Life, Teachings, Quotes, and Books (Awaken)
• Emily Ratajkowski draws backlash over 'fatphobic' photoshoot (usatoday.com)
• AUDIO: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (The Moth)